


A Rook for a Mark

by blackhorseandthecherrytree



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24834397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackhorseandthecherrytree/pseuds/blackhorseandthecherrytree
Summary: Nothing lasts here, although sometimes it lingers.
Relationships: Player/The Struggling Artist (Fallen London), fucked up relationships - Relationship
Kudos: 7





	A Rook for a Mark

When you first came to Fallen London, you were so very naive, the kind of mark that you would rook without a second thought now. You pickpocketed citizens and dealt with Clay Men, scrummaging for scrapes of jade and rostygold. You hobnobbed, fought and romanced with equal amounts of vigor, unaware of the secrets lining the streets and clouding the air.

It was then that you met the man who would become the Struggling Artist, in that strange twilight of strangeness and possibility. You flirted; you danced; you fucked, in honey dreams and out. You were not each other’s only partners. That transience made your trysts only more delicious, a thing you could not have for long. Even breaking it up was delightful. You scorned your lover for fame and notoriety, making wit of his frailities and failures. You knew that he would not forgive you. You set yourself up not to care.

London then was an alluring miasma of all the choices you would never have been able to make up Above, or at least not without consequence. Here, no one cares. Escaping prison is easy for one who knows the ways, let alone death. Many’s the time you’ve seen a naked hanged man walking home in temporary disgrace, sure to be cleared up by a visit to the Tomb Colonies. And insanity is only ever a gentleman’s walk away.

You learned to say yes to all the propositions that might have horrified you before, Above. Whatever horror is left is that of a creaky door, or a missing stair. You know you are missing something; you know it is out there to be known; but no one will say it straightforward. The Forgotten Quarter is like that, full of ghosts and devils’ horns and neglected artifacts. Half-told stories, reflected in mirrors. You’ve learned not to trust mirrors. In your home, they all face the wall. Sometimes they look at you anyways.

The - the point is, you have made choices, and you continue to make them because you still live. You made it to the Shuttered Court and the University and the Labyrinth of Tigers, and survived, and didn’t know if you deserved to. You learned the words of the Correspondence, sparking in your brain. As the Nadir’s irrigo clouded your judgment, you forgot things that seemed important. You have changed and been changed.

But there is one thing you have learned: never to give your heart over to love. Nothing, it seems, can make someone more miserable. A Society dame, every once in a while, will try to introduce her daughter or son to your attention; while you are polite, you either refuse to make an advance or wrap them up in a whirlwind of romance until you are done with them. You don’t commit.

And the Struggling Artist, with his pleas for items, his failures and fragility, his half-concealed hate - he is the only person who puts his demands up front to you. You can amuse yourself with him, know that he will leave in the morning and be back the next week. He’s predictable and dependent - you’re in control. You can lie with him, reject him, scream at him and pet him. He’ll always come back for more.

You think the day he finally permanently dies may be a truly tragic day for you. You’ll wear black, you think, and hope that his death is suitably romantic. Somebody’s might as well be.


End file.
